1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate to a method and apparatus for printing data with a predetermined format from a terminal device using Bluetooth communication.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, short-range wireless communications within a range of about 10 m have been developed. Even though a conventional wireless LAN has a valid transmission range equal to or greater than 100 m, short-range wireless communication has a shorter transmission range. Since the power used in short-range wireless communications is low, short-range wireless communication is suitable for an information processing apparatus having a limited battery capacity, such as a mobile phone and a personal digital assistant (PDA). The short-range wireless communication method includes a Bluetooth communication method. Recently, a terminal device, such as a mobile phone and a PDA, which has a communication function according to Bluetooth specifications, and a conventional printing apparatus for printing data received from the terminal device using Bluetooth communication, have been distributed.
Bluetooth communication supports the transmission of data with a predetermined format, such as vCard, vCalendar, vMessage, and vNote. When printing the data with one of the aforementioned formats from the terminal device using Bluetooth communication, the terminal device transmits the data with the aforementioned predetermined format or transmits data obtained by combining the vCard data with template data. When the terminal device transmits the vCard data, a “send” command is input from the terminal device. When the terminal device transmits the data by combining the vCard data with the template data, a “print” command is input from the terminal device. The terminal device transmits data using an object push profile (OPP) in response to the “send” command, and transmits data using a basic printing profile (BPP) in response to the “print” command.
When the conventional printing apparatus receives vCard data from the terminal device, the conventional printing apparatus combines the vCard data with template data provided by the conventional printing apparatus and prints the combined data. When the conventional printing apparatus receives data obtained by combining vCard data with template data, the conventional printing apparatus prints the received data without additional processing.
The template data provided by the conventional printing apparatuses are different from one another depending on the particular printing apparatus. Accordingly, when transmitting the same vCard data from a terminal device to the conventional printing apparatuses, printing results printed by the conventional printing apparatuses differ. In addition, template data used for combining vCard data with template data in the terminal device may differ from the template data that is provided by the conventional printing apparatus. Accordingly, the printing result obtained by transmitting vCard data is different from the printing result obtained by transmitting combined vCard and template data.